1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to a method of depositing seed layers which induce the formation of alpha tantalum in a tantalum film which is deposited over the seed layer.
2. Brief Description of the Background Art
As microelectronics continue to miniaturize, interconnection performance, reliability, and power consumption has become increasingly important, and interest has grown in replacing aluminum alloys with lower resistivity and higher reliability metals. Copper offers a significant improvement over aluminum as a contact and interconnect material. For example, the resistivity of copper is about 1.67 μΩ-cm, which is only about half of the resistivity of aluminum.
One of the preferred technologies which enables the use of copper interconnects is the damascene process. This process for producing a multi-level structure having feature sizes in the range of 0.25 micron (μm) or less typically includes the following steps: blanket deposition of a dielectric material over a substrate; patterning of the dielectric material to form openings; deposition of a diffusion barrier layer and, optionally, a wetting layer to line the openings; deposition of a copper layer onto the substrate in sufficient thickness to fill the openings; and removal of excessive conductive material from the substrate surface using chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) techniques. The damascene process is described in detail by C. Steinbruchel in “Patterning of copper for multilevel metallization: reactive ion etching and chemical-mechanical polishing”, Applied Surface Science 91 (1995) 139-146.
The preferred barrier layer/wetting layer for use with copper comprises a tantalum nitride/tantalum (barrier/wetting) layer having a decreasing nitrogen content toward the upper surface of the layer. This structure is described in applicants' copending application Ser. No. 08/995,108, filed Dec. 19, 1997. A barrier layer having a surface which is essentially pure tantalum or tantalum including only a small amount of nitrogen (typically less than about 15 atomic percent) performs well as a barrier layer and also as a wetting layer to enhance the subsequent application of an overlying copper layer.
Tantalum (Ta) metal has two crystalline phases: the low resistivity (12-20 micro-ohm-cm) alpha (body centered cubic or bcc) phase and a higher resistivity (160-170 micro-ohm-cm) beta (tetragonal) phase. Philip Catania et al. in “Low resistivity body-centered cubic tantalum thin films as diffusion barriers between copper and silicon”, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 10(5), September/October 1992, describes the resistivity of thin bcc-tantalum films and β-tantalum films. The resistivity for bcc-tantalum (α-tantalum) films is said to be on the order of 30 μΩ-cm, while the resistivity of the β-tantalum films ranges from about 160 to 180 μΩ-cm. A comparison of the effectiveness of thin bcc-Ta and β-Ta layers as diffusion barriers to copper penetration into silicon shows that the bcc-Ta which exhibits low resistivity also performs well as a barrier layer up to 650° C.
Kyung-Hoon Min et al. in “Comparative study of tantalum and tantalum nitrides (Ta2N and TaN) as a diffusion barrier for Cu metallization”, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 14(5), September/October 1996, discuss tantalum and tantalum nitride films of about 50 nm thickness deposited by reactive sputtering onto a silicon substrate. The performance of these films as a diffusion barrier between copper and silicon is also discussed. The diffusion barrier layer performance is said to be enhanced as nitrogen concentration in the film is increased.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,607,384 to Frank D. Banks, issued Sep. 21, 1971, describes thin film resistors which utilize layers of tantalum or tantalum nitride. FIG. 1 in the '385 patent shows the resistivity for a particular tantalum nitride film as a function of the sputtering voltage and FIG. 2 shows the resistivity as a function of the nitrogen content of the film. The lowest resistivity obtained under any conditions was about 179 μΩ-cm.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,878,079 to Alois Schauer, issued Apr. 15, 1975, describes and claims a method of producing thin tantalum films which are body-centered cubic lattices. The films are deposited upon a glass substrate, and FIG. 2 of the '079 patent shows resistivity for tantalum nitride films as a function of nitrogen content. U.S. Pat. No. 4,000,055 to Kumagai et al., issued Dec. 28, 1976, discloses a method of depositing nitrogen-doped beta-tantalum thin films. FIG. 2 of the '055 patent also shows the resistivity of the film as a function of the nitrogen content of the film.
In one method of generating an alpha-Ta film, the film is generated in a high density plasma. The cathode, which is made of tantalum, functions as a target. Tantalum species in the form of charged particles exiting the target pass through a nitrogen containing plasma and adhere on to the surface of the substrate. An alpha-Ta film is formed in this manner. However, the method, which involves small additions of nitrogen to the tantalum film in order to lower the resistivity of tantalum, is generally difficult to control. For more information on this process, please refer to Japanese Patent No. JP6154585 to Yoshida, issued Sep. 29, 1981.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,221,449 to Colgan et al., issued Jun. 22, 1993, describes a method of making alpha-tantalum thin films. In particular, a seed layer of Ta(N) is grown upon a substrate by reactive sputtering of tantalum in a nitrogen-containing environment. A thin film of α-tantalum is then formed over the Ta(N) seed layer. In the Background Art section of the patent, reference is made to the “Handbook of Thin Film Technology”, McGraw-Hill, page 18-12 (1970), where it is reported that if the substrate temperature exceeds 600° C., alpha phase tantalum film is formed. Further reference is made to an article by G. Feinstein and R. D. Huttemann, “Factors Controlling the Structure of Sputtered Tantalum Films”, Thin Solid Films, Vol. 16, pages 129-145 (1973).
In another method for depositing an alpha tantalum film, a tantalum target is reactively sputtered into a nitrogen plasma to form a Ta(N) seed layer on a substrate. Subsequently, tantalum is sputter deposited over the Ta(N) seed layer to form alpha tantalum. The alpha tantalum is said to be formed when the atomic percent nitrogen in the plasma during deposition of the Ta(N) seed layer ranges from 0.3% to 35%, with the remainder being argon. For more information on this process, please refer to U. S. Pat. No. 5,281,485 to Colgan et al., issued Jan. 25, 1994.
A method of depositing an alpha-tantalum film on a semiconductor wafer by depositing a tantalum nitride film on a wafer is disclosed in pending U.S. application Ser. No. 09/775,356 of Sundarrajan et al., filed on Jan. 31, 2001, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. This reference describes a method of depositing a tantalum nitride film on a wafer, and then depositing a tantalum film over the tantalum nitride with significant substrate biasing of about 100 W to about 500 W during the tantalum deposition. The tantalum film that is deposited is alpha phase.
As the feature size of semiconductor devices becomes ever smaller, the barrier/wetting layer becomes a larger portion of the interconnect structure. In order to maximize the benefit of copper's low resistivity, the diffusion barrier/adhesion layer must be made very thin and/or must have low resistivity itself (so that it does not impact the effective line resistance of the resulting metal interconnect structure). As is readily apparent, depending on the device to be fabricated, various methods have been used in an attempt to develop a tantalum film which is α phase when lower resistivity is required. Typically, small additions of nitrogen have been made to tantalum films to lower the resistivity of the tantalum. Typically, the nitrogen is added by reactive sputtering during tantalum deposition, but this method is difficult to control, as any deviation in the nitrogen content of the plasma (even ±1 sccm of nitrogen flow) may lead to a significant increase in resistivity of the depositing film.
The prior art lacks an effective method of depositing a seed layer consisting essentially of tantalum and a small amount of nitrogen, where the amount of nitrogen in the seed layer is carefully controlled. The present invention fulfills this long-standing need in the art.